Joseph Bishop Pratt (1854-1910)
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Research by Jacqueline Arundel and
Marjorie Gregson |
Engraver Joseph Bishop Pratt
Artist dates 1854-1910
Images from L to R:
signature
Where Only Seabirds Roam (after Peter Graham)
Rhyl Sands (after David Cox)
Crossing the Stream "
Going to the Plough "
The Skirts of the Forest "
The Hayfield on a Breezy Day "
Missing Images
Going to the Mill "
All the above donated by Emma Walmsley, 373 Clifton Drive North, Lytham St Annes, 27 September 1943.
Moorland and Mist (after Peter Graham)
donated by Alice Parkinson, 15 Osborne Road, Lytham St Annes, 27 May 1940
JOSEPH BISHOP PRATT
Joseph Bishop Pratt (1854-1910) was an engraver born at 4 College Terrace, Camden New Town, London North, on 1 January 1854. His father, Anthony Pratt, was a printer of mezzotints and his mother was Ann Bishop.
In 1868 he was apprenticed to David Lucas (1802-1881) with whom he remained for five years. Lucas produced many of John Constable's (1776-1837) engravings. From 1829 until his death, Constable devoted considerable time, energy and money to the business of printmaking and publishing, activities that had concerned him hardly at all in earlier years. The principal outcome was a series of twenty-two mezzotints, engraved under his close supervision, by the young David Lucas and entitled Various Subjects of Landscape, Characteristic of English Scenery, from Pictures Painted by John Constable RA, generally known today simply as English Landscape. Lucas also engraved several larger plates on his own initiative and, after Constable's death, some further small plates intended to supplement English Landscape.
The first plate for which Pratt received a commission, Maternal Felicity, after Samuel Carter, was published in December 1873. For the firms of Agnew, Graves, Lefèvre, Leggatt and Tooth he engraved many plates of animal subjects, after Sir Edwin Henry Landseer RA (1802-1873), Briton Riviere (1840-1920), Peter Graham (1836-1921), Rosa Bonheur (1822-1899), whom he visited at Fontainebleau, and others; these were varied occasionally by figure subjects and landscapes after John Constable and David Cox (1783-1859).
Pratt's early engravings were chiefly in the ’mixed' manner, a combination of etching, line work and mezzotint, but a second period in his career began in 1896 from which date he confined himself to pure mezzotint and almost exclusively to subjects after the English painters of the Georgian era, who had then come into fashion. Plates commissioned in that year and published in 1897 by Messrs Agnew, after Raeburn's Mrs Gregory and Lawrence's Mrs Cuthbert, met with great success and Pratt was subsequently much employed by the same firm in engraving pictures by Thomas Gainsborough (c1727-1788), Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), George Romney (1734-1802), John Hoppner (1758-1810) and their contemporaries. In doing so, he limited himself to subjects that had not been engraved before.
He continued to engrave a series of subjects, after Graham, for Messrs Tooth (Pratt's engraving Where Only Sea Birds Roam is after Graham's 1903 And There is Never Silence on that Shore) and he was also selected by Sir Samuel Luke Fildes (1843-1927) to engrave the state portraits of Edward VII (1902) and Queen Alexandra (1906). One of his last important plates, The Countess of Warwick and her Children, after Romney, was published by Messrs P & D Colnaghi in 1909.
Pratt purchased the set of mezzotinter's tools that had been used by Samuel Cousins (1801-1887) from the widow of Thomas Oldham Barlow (q v Suppl. I), their late owner.
Exhibitions of Pratt's engravings held by Messrs Agnew at Manchester and Liverpool in 1902 and by Messrs Vicars in Bond Street in 1904 proved him to be the foremost reproductive engraver of his time. A considerable, though incomplete, collection of his work is in the British Museum.
Pratt long resided at Harpenden, Hertfordshire, but moved to Benchley in Kent in 1907.
He died in London following an operation on 23 December 1910. He had six children by his marriage on 26 August 1878 to Caroline Almader James, who survived him. His eldest son, Stanley Claude Pratt, born on 9 June 1882, an engraver, was a pupil of his father; his first plate was published in 1904.
Joseph Bishop Pratt (1854-1910) was an engraver born at 4 College Terrace, Camden New Town, London North, on 1 January 1854. His father, Anthony Pratt, was a printer of mezzotints and his mother was Ann Bishop.
In 1868 he was apprenticed to David Lucas (1802-1881) with whom he remained for five years. Lucas produced many of John Constable's (1776-1837) engravings. From 1829 until his death, Constable devoted considerable time, energy and money to the business of printmaking and publishing, activities that had concerned him hardly at all in earlier years. The principal outcome was a series of twenty-two mezzotints, engraved under his close supervision, by the young David Lucas and entitled Various Subjects of Landscape, Characteristic of English Scenery, from Pictures Painted by John Constable RA, generally known today simply as English Landscape. Lucas also engraved several larger plates on his own initiative and, after Constable's death, some further small plates intended to supplement English Landscape.
The first plate for which Pratt received a commission, Maternal Felicity, after Samuel Carter, was published in December 1873. For the firms of Agnew, Graves, Lefèvre, Leggatt and Tooth he engraved many plates of animal subjects, after Sir Edwin Henry Landseer RA (1802-1873), Briton Riviere (1840-1920), Peter Graham (1836-1921), Rosa Bonheur (1822-1899), whom he visited at Fontainebleau, and others; these were varied occasionally by figure subjects and landscapes after John Constable and David Cox (1783-1859).
Pratt's early engravings were chiefly in the ’mixed' manner, a combination of etching, line work and mezzotint, but a second period in his career began in 1896 from which date he confined himself to pure mezzotint and almost exclusively to subjects after the English painters of the Georgian era, who had then come into fashion. Plates commissioned in that year and published in 1897 by Messrs Agnew, after Raeburn's Mrs Gregory and Lawrence's Mrs Cuthbert, met with great success and Pratt was subsequently much employed by the same firm in engraving pictures by Thomas Gainsborough (c1727-1788), Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), George Romney (1734-1802), John Hoppner (1758-1810) and their contemporaries. In doing so, he limited himself to subjects that had not been engraved before.
He continued to engrave a series of subjects, after Graham, for Messrs Tooth (Pratt's engraving Where Only Sea Birds Roam is after Graham's 1903 And There is Never Silence on that Shore) and he was also selected by Sir Samuel Luke Fildes (1843-1927) to engrave the state portraits of Edward VII (1902) and Queen Alexandra (1906). One of his last important plates, The Countess of Warwick and her Children, after Romney, was published by Messrs P & D Colnaghi in 1909.
Pratt purchased the set of mezzotinter's tools that had been used by Samuel Cousins (1801-1887) from the widow of Thomas Oldham Barlow (q v Suppl. I), their late owner.
Exhibitions of Pratt's engravings held by Messrs Agnew at Manchester and Liverpool in 1902 and by Messrs Vicars in Bond Street in 1904 proved him to be the foremost reproductive engraver of his time. A considerable, though incomplete, collection of his work is in the British Museum.
Pratt long resided at Harpenden, Hertfordshire, but moved to Benchley in Kent in 1907.
He died in London following an operation on 23 December 1910. He had six children by his marriage on 26 August 1878 to Caroline Almader James, who survived him. His eldest son, Stanley Claude Pratt, born on 9 June 1882, an engraver, was a pupil of his father; his first plate was published in 1904.
Bibliography
Dodgson, C, (1912), Pratt, Joseph Bishop, Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 Supplement, Volume 3, Smith, Elder & Co, London, available online
Tate, (1984-86), John Constable, David Lucas, Illustrated Catalogue of Acquisitions Including Supplement to Catalogue of Acquisitions 1982-84, Tate Gallery, London, 1988, pp 23-6 & 48-9, available online @ www.tate.org.uk/
The Phaidon Companion to Art and Artists in the British Isles, 1980, pp SC20 & SC21,
ISBN 0 7148 1932 8
The Times, 24 December 1910
Daily Telegraph, 1 January 1911
PETER GRAHAM - Where Only Seabirds Roam and Moorland and Mist
Peter Graham was born in Edinburgh in 1836 where he studied portrait painting at the Trustees' Academy until 1859 before turning his interest to landscape painting, particularly of Highland scenery.
In 1866 he moved to London where a painting called A Spate in the Highland, exhibited at the Royal Academy the same year, brought him to public attention. Graham went on to paint landscapes for Queen Victoria and these commissioned works, which also gave him access to the Royal Family's residence at Balmoral, brought him much fame. His work, through the emergence of engravings and prints, secured his popularity. In 1881 he became a full member of the Royal Academy.
Graham spent half of the year in Buckinghamshire where he kept Highland cattle which served as models. He also had a house called 'Westoun' in St Andrews, Scotland, where he died in 1921.
Dodgson, C, (1912), Pratt, Joseph Bishop, Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 Supplement, Volume 3, Smith, Elder & Co, London, available online
Tate, (1984-86), John Constable, David Lucas, Illustrated Catalogue of Acquisitions Including Supplement to Catalogue of Acquisitions 1982-84, Tate Gallery, London, 1988, pp 23-6 & 48-9, available online @ www.tate.org.uk/
The Phaidon Companion to Art and Artists in the British Isles, 1980, pp SC20 & SC21,
ISBN 0 7148 1932 8
The Times, 24 December 1910
Daily Telegraph, 1 January 1911
PETER GRAHAM - Where Only Seabirds Roam and Moorland and Mist
Peter Graham was born in Edinburgh in 1836 where he studied portrait painting at the Trustees' Academy until 1859 before turning his interest to landscape painting, particularly of Highland scenery.
In 1866 he moved to London where a painting called A Spate in the Highland, exhibited at the Royal Academy the same year, brought him to public attention. Graham went on to paint landscapes for Queen Victoria and these commissioned works, which also gave him access to the Royal Family's residence at Balmoral, brought him much fame. His work, through the emergence of engravings and prints, secured his popularity. In 1881 he became a full member of the Royal Academy.
Graham spent half of the year in Buckinghamshire where he kept Highland cattle which served as models. He also had a house called 'Westoun' in St Andrews, Scotland, where he died in 1921.
